2. Contact Info

3. Dealer Selection

Crossover utility vehicles (CUVs?) with near-sport-sedan handling have been available since the beginning of the millennium. But the BMW X5, Porsche Cayenne, Volkswagen Touareg, and Infiniti FX45 have yet to offer that all-important third-row mother-in-law/kid seat.

Audi breaks through that wall with the Q7, a crossover that complements its S8 uebersedan. The Q7 has coupelike styling, a claimed world-first gas-direct-injection V-8–the 350-horse, 325-pound-foot, 4.2-liter from the RS4–and room for up to seven people, most of them adults. It’s a longish 200.7 inches overall and rides on a 118.2-inch wheelbase. The V-8 has been tuned for more torque in the Q7 than in the RS4, but still zings to 7200 rpm. A six-speed automatic with Tiptronic paddle controls will be the only transmission for all engine options.

This thing will get around corners as well as most normal-height Audis, although a short drive in icy conditions blunted efforts to determine exactly how well. The optional air suspension feels good, especially on the “dynamic” setting, where those off-road tires give up long before body roll gets serious. Extrapolating from the cautious cornering, the Q7 feels ready to keep up with an X5 on a road course, while refraining from beating you up on rough roads like the Bimmer does.

Having it all includes a 48/52 front/rear torque split full-time next-generation quattro system, serious tires, and the ability to climb rocks with the most ardent of off-roaders, according to Audi. All this, and it has the handling and ride you’d want in a sport sedan. It’s good on that snow-and-ice kind of off-roading that most luxury buyers will experience. If you live where snow and ice are as rare as $50,000 to $65,000 luxury seven-seat sport-sedan crossovers, Audi offers a summer tire for the optional 20-inch wheel.

Audi claims good V-8 mileage with the FSI gas direct-injection technology and a 0.34 drag coefficient. While EPA figures weren’t available at presstime, Audi predicts combined fuel-mileage estimates in the upper teens to low 20s, respectable for its size. The Q7’s fuel tank is huge–26.4 gallons, making for potentially a 500-plus-mile range. Buyers will choose from five-, six-, or seven-seat versions. The six-seater has split captain’s chairs, with a console in the second row. The seven-seater has a mid-row bench that adjusts fore and aft and reclines. Second and third rows fold flat without lifting bottom cushions or removing headrests, the latter of which flip down with the pull of a cord.

The Q7’s interior is downright wonderful. The leather isn’t quite as supple as Mercedes‘s best, but seat stitching is perfect, and there’s a harmony of colors and textures you wouldn’t expect from something with so many different colors and textures. You get wood, brushed chrome, dark brushed nickel (on the instrument-panel face), leathers and plastics, and two different grays in the dash. There’s something like a square acre of Alcantara headliner on this huge beast. And the Q7 has cupholders. Ten in all: six built into the center console and third-row cabin and four bottle-holders in the doors.

Optional four-zone air-conditioning has a separate evaporator compromising post-third-row luggage capacity and has second-row controls. The second row gets its own bunwarmers, too. A foldable “intelligent” cargo cover is standard on the seven-seater with the four-zone air/con. Open the power tailgate in a low garage, hold the “close” button on the bottom of the tailgate or the fob button for three seconds before it reaches the top level, and you can set the tailgate-open height.

Optional Audi Side Assist has amber vertical-strip lights inside the side mirrors that warn the driver of a car in his blind spots. The lights blink fast, and there’s an audio warning if a car gets particularly close. It works well during the day, but it’ll take some getting used to at night, when it’s like having a cop car flash emergency lights into your rearview. The adaptive cruise control also is revised. Before, it controlled your speed in a 20-to-90-mph range. Now in the Q7, it goes to zero and will remain engaged at zero for three seconds. In other words, the cruise control can stop you completely in rush-hour traffic (but compensates for changing lanes).

Audi has also joined the panoramic sunroof craze. The Q7’s optional roof has a large glass area over the first and second rows and a smaller one over the third. A large portion of the first roof slides or tilts while the third-row glass just tilts.

The Q7 suspension is multilink, and the optional air suspension has two raised settings in addition to the normal and dynamic driving modes. An off-road mode operates at speeds up to 60 mph, and a “lift” mode operates up to 25 mph, providing clearance over tall obstacles. The highest setting increases ground clearance from 6.5 to 9.5 inches, but that’s measured at the aerodynamic front spoiler–rocker-panel clearance tops out at 13 inches.

In the dynamic setting, spring and damping rates rise as you increase steering rate, which accounts for the good comfort/handling trade-off. The standard Servotronic steering is designed with a direct, but variable ratio, flattened at the center point for good straight-line stability. It provides high power assist at low speeds. The result is steering that feels odd at times, with more feel than weight, but it doesn’t get jiggy like BMW‘s system.

The basic structure is high-strength steel, but with aluminum hood, fenders, and hatchlid. The Q7 has two front, two front-side, and two three-row curtain airbags, with second-row side bags optional because some customers with small kids don’t want them. Its rollover stability control is two-stage, consisting of an electronic stability program you can’t completely switch off and an off-road program that includes hill-descent assist. Audi says you can drift the Q7 at low speeds, but at high speeds, the ESP takes over.

Take Audi’s word for it. We tried off-ramps fast enough to experience the Q7’s cornering stability, and it felt good. This is a big-shouldered crossover, bigger than anything before it to wear the four-ring badge. The height and serious off-roading capability keeps the big Audi from devolving into a lux minivan, like the Mercedes R-Class, which is the only new entry in this category that’s bigger than the Q7.

So you can have it all: an off-roadable luxury vehicle you may never find the need to take off-road, one that flirts with many genres without becoming an amorphous, indefinable mess. If you want more economy and a lower price, a 280-horse, 3.6-liter, FSI V-6 version will be available by the fall for about $40,000. A much-anticipated hybrid is probably a year off. And somewhere off in the near distance is an S-Line model, with the RS4’s 40/60-torque split and possibly a twin-turbo V-8 or even the 5.2-liter V-10.

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2007 Audi Q7 News and Reviews

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